Prologue

They say the cold won’t kill you if you can remember what it was like to be warm.

But when the hell was that? Back before we broke the world: when the streetlamps were full of fire and you didn’t have to search so hard to find the spark of light in someone’s eyes. Now there’s just darkness and death and—

No. Remember.

Shoulder to shoulder on the Sunder City streetcar, crammed between fur-covered creatures and dirty workers done for the day. Music and mulled wine in underground clubs, before it all went rotten and silent and—

No.

The Ditch, after closing, alone with a mop. Warmer than you might imagine. The air thick with the memory of pipe smoke, folk songs and bad breath. Windows fogged over and the kitchen ripe with onions, mutton and sage.

I wipe the tables, warmed by plates and heavy elbows; clearing peanut shells, tobacco crumbs, gristle and spit. Working from top to bottom, I sweep and then mop, thinning down the sickening mix of food scraps, melted snow and spilt beer.

I throw the bigger pieces into the fireplace: a cast-iron sculpture in the center of the room, topped with a thick chimney. I watch the flames eat the leftovers, spitting grease against the glass door. For a moment, that fireplace is the warmest thing in the building. Then the front door opens and Eliah Hendricks arrives.

“Fetch, my boy! You have got to try one of these!”

* * *

The High Chancellor stumbled into The Ditch with both hands wrapped around a leaky paper bag. Brown oil dripped down his ringed fingers on to my newly mopped floor. His copper-colored hair, sprinkled with snow, was bunched up in the collar of his riding cloak. I was flattered: the leader of the Opus had traveled for days to get to Sunder City and I was his first stop.

Well, second. He’d stopped to get snacks.

I wiped my hands on my apron and made a move towards the bag. Hendricks pulled it away like he was saving a baby from a lion’s jaws.

“Don’t even think about sticking those filthy tentacles in here. Open up.”

Hendricks reached into the bag and plucked out a sweet-smelling, crispy bundle. I opened my mouth and he pushed it onto my tongue.

“They call them Swine-o’s. Fried plums wrapped in thin strips of fatty pork.” I bit down slowly, feeling the mixture of fruit juice and animal fat fill my mouth. “Isn’t it just marvelous? This right here is the miracle of Sunder City. Most people on the continent can’t see it. They’re so set in their ways they don’t understand what’s so special about this place. This,” he pointed an oily finger at my full cheeks, “is a modern marvel. The old magic would never have conjured this up. Not in hundreds of years. I ought to know: I was there!”

He pulled another burgundy morsel out of the bag, held it under his nose, breathed deeply and shook his head in disbelief.

“Mizaki winter-plums, sweetened to perfection by the chilled winds of the north, cocooned in marbled pork-belly from the cocoa-bean-eating boars of Southern Skiros. An ingenious invention of Sunder City cuisine sold on a street-corner at midnight for the shocking price of one silver coin per packet.” He popped it in his mouth and kept on talking. “This is progress, Fetch! This is something worth fighting for!”

He dropped the oily bag on my clean table and I dragged over a couple of stools. Hendricks went behind the bar and began the well-practiced routine he performed every time we were together.
First, he slipped two bronze bills into the register. It would not only cover the booze we were about to consume, but also encourage Mr Tatterman to overlook my debilitating hangover the next day.

There was no point trying to do any work while Hendricks was around so I dragged the mop bucket out back, took off the apron, washed my hands, and helped myself to some leftovers from the kitchen that wouldn’t be missed: a quarter-wheel of hard cheese, a dollop of honey and some bread that was a day away from stale. When I brought out the plate, Hendricks had all his ingredients lined up like soldiers.

Burnt milkwood, like most cocktails, began its life as medicine. The sap of the tarix tree is cooked over an open flame till it melts into a bitter, caramel-colored syrup: good for sore throats and sinus infections but it tastes terrible on its own. Mothers with sick kids mixed in beet-sugar to balance out the flavors. Over time, more ingredients were added until the recipe became so rich that, if one was so inclined, it could hide a ridiculous amount of alcohol without anyone being able to taste it.

Most bars kept a pre-mixed bottle of tarix sap on hand, but Eliah preferred to make his own.

“My boy! How go the adventures of the biggest kid in Sunder City?” he asked, as he emptied a small vial of raw sap into a saucepan. “Still breaking hearts, banks and expectations?”

He always talked to me like that. For all our fondness of each other, I never quite worked out if he was teasing me about my struggles or whether he actually thought I was making good impressions around town.

“I’ve got a new room,” I said. “Sharing with an Ogre who snores like thunder. I have to get my sleep during the day when he’s working at the steel-mill but it still feels like I’m moving up in the world.”

“No need to move up, Master Fetch, just around.” He swirled the sap in the saucepan as he made his way over to the fireplace. “This is a marvelous city to play in but most people misunderstand the game. The beauty of Sunder is that it isn’t some ancient kingdom bogged down with bloodlines and crowns where the leaders spend all their time trying to cut each other off at the necks. It’s a market. A dance-hall. It’s a laboratory of unstable chemicals reacting to each other in beautiful and unexpected ways. Don’t look up. Look down! Take off your shoes and let the city squeeze between your toes. Wallow in it. Smell it and taste it until you’ve absorbed everything it has to offer.”

Hendricks sat down in front of the fire, wrapped his cloak around his fingers and grabbed the handle of the glass door. When he opened it up, the heat blew back his hair. He pushed the saucepan inside, slowly shaking it in circles as the flames caught the sap. I took a seat at the table and dipped a crust of bread into the honey.

“There’s not much time for wallowing when I have to work three jobs.”

He pulled the saucepan from the fire, blew out the flames that were burning too quickly, then slid it back in.

“I suppose that all depends on who you work for,” he said.

“It’s different every week. I’ve been working for Amari quite a bit.”

“Ah, yes. My Faery friend with her little Fetch wrapped around her finger. What does she pay you in? Batted lashes and hidden kisses?”

I blushed and ignored the question.

“Mostly, I’m just here. Sometimes I run errands for the apothecary or take one-off jobs from customers.”

The sap turned a deep caramel so Hendricks pulled out the pan and brought it back behind the bar.

“But who do you really work for? The sleepy oaf who runs this place? He’s the one who pays you and gives you your orders.”

He was mounting the back of another one of his speeches and I’d learned not to stand in his way when he took off.

“I suppose so.”

“Or are you really just working for the money? If so, then some would say that you’re actually working for the Sunder City Bank. Perhaps we all are! But does the city serve the bank or does the bank serve the city?” It wasn’t a question I was supposed to know the answer to, so I just shrugged. “Perhaps I’m underestimating you. Maybe it’s not about the money at all. In your heart, perhaps you work for the customers. When you polish the bar and mop the floors and clean the glasses to perfection” – in jest, he wiped a smudge from the high-ball he was holding – “do you actually think about the patrons themselves? Do you see yourself as being in service to them?”

He stirred in the other ingredients, balancing his attention perfectly between drinks and discussion.

“Well, I wouldn’t do it for free.”

“Wouldn’t you? If you didn’t need the money and this place couldn’t function without you, wouldn’t you help if they asked?”

“I suppose.”

“So perhaps the money isn’t really what matters. Perhaps the money is working in service of the city just like you. You both play your part. Two of the many moving pieces that this city needs to function, the same as the smokestacks and the cobblestones and the newspapers and the fire.”

He brought the two thick drinks back to our table and pointed at the fireplace behind me.

“Who does the fire work for? All of us? For itself? Does it care? It burns just as brightly no matter what purpose we bestow upon it.”

We tapped our glasses together and I took a sip. It was sweet, but unlike other cocktails (or the same one made by less skilled hands) the sugar didn’t kill the more complex flavors underneath.

“Fetch, you know what Dragons are, don’t you?”

“I’ve seen pictures at the museum. Big, scaly monsters, right?”

“They can evolve into all manner of creatures but yes, common Dragons are just like you say: scales, tails and wings. Miraculous creatures, each and every one of them. We do our best to protect them now but two hundred years ago, Dragon-hunting was a highly regarded profession.

“Unlike most warriors, Dragon slayers had no national allegiance. This freedom allowed them to work in any land, for any species, and become rich as princes if they were successful in their craft. Towns would hire slayers for protection. If an attack had already happened, they would pay for their revenge. On top of that, Dragon scales and bones were precious commodities that the slayers would sell for a small fortune on top of their fee. Above all this, their most valuable prize was fame.

“It’s hard to imagine now. Dragon slaying, like most mercenary work, has gone quite out of fashion. I take some responsibility: the Opus has made a concerted effort to cut down on the number of free agents out in the world, swinging swords for profit. There are so few Dragons left that killing one constitutes a crime but, back then, there was no career more heroic, exciting or profitable.”

Unlike Hendricks, who had spent three hundred years exploring every corner of Archetellos, I’d only seen two cities in my life. Weatherly, where I grew up, was surrounded by high walls that hid the outside world. Sunder was multicultural and ever-expanding but it wasn’t without its limitations. After three years in the one place, stories of the outside world were starting to make my feet itch.

“You’ve seen the way children here talk about sportsmen, or how ladies fawn over the troubadours singing at the playhouse. Well, Dragon slaying was all that rolled together and multiplied by ten. We knew their names, we traded rumors of their exploits and sung songs of their adventures. They had streets named after them and replicas constructed of their swords. They never paid for a meal, never paid for a bed, and rarely went to one alone. There was nothing else like it anywhere in the world. Every species and town had their heroes, but a Dragon slayer belonged to everyone.
“Of course, this brought an incredible amount of competition. As Dragon numbers dwindled, any rumor of a monster started a race without rules. Carts were sabotaged, meals were poisoned and swords were put through slayers’ chests while they slept. Many fighters became more concerned with beating each other than the Dragons they’d been trained to battle.

“Then, one night, a group of merchants arrived in Lopari. They claimed to have seen a burst of flame in the Sunderian swamps that lit up the sky and shook the earth. The rumor had barely been spoken before a young warrior named Fintack Ro was leaving town on horseback. It didn’t matter to Fintack that nobody was paying a bounty: his prize would be bones, scales and, most importantly, a boost to his reputation. Though there were hundreds of aspiring slayers in the world, only a handful had truly proven their worth. Fintack was younger than the others and he’d come to the game just before the Dragon population dropped.

“Older hunters could choose to retire: write a book, train princes for a ridiculous fee or open a tavern and bring in crowds by telling stories of their adventures. Fintack was still an up-and-comer. He needed that one great kill. He needed one of those tales that had wings of its own and flew from the tongues of travelers like a plague in winter.

“Fintack stocked up on rations, sharpened his weapons, and was the first warrior to arrive in Sunderia. He spent a whole week hunting through the swamps, his socks always wet and bug bites rising on his arms. He traveled during the day, slowly and dangerously, and at night he’d stay awake as long as he could, searching for fire on the horizon.

“To his frustration, the first signs of life came from the camps of rival slayers: other top-tier warriors who were stumbling around the swamps, equally empty-handed. Finally, one sunrise, Fintack woke to find the ground rumbling around him. He opened his eyes to see a ball of orange flame rising from deep in the mangroves. He grabbed his sword and ran right for it.

“He had learned how to navigate the reeds and puddles, knowing which mud would hold his weight and which would eat his shoes. His hands grabbed branches that were black with soot, and he sensed that the creature must be waiting up ahead.

“When he cut his way through a web of vines, another burst of flame erupted right in front of him, but he still couldn’t see the beast. He squinted through the mangroves, searching as he crept onward, but when he heard the others closing in on his position, he was forced to step out into the clearing and face . . .”

Hendricks took a long sip to extend the tension.

“. . . nothing. No movement, no tracks, no sign of any Dragon at all. Fintack searched in all directions as two other slayers joined him in the clearing: a Wizard named Prim and a Dwarf called Riley. All three warriors looked around, confounded and frustrated. Then, from the center of their triangle, a stream of fire shot out from the swamp and up into the sky.

“There was no Dragon. It was a decoy, made by the land itself. The slayers were frustrated. Angry. Tired. They called a truce and set up camp. Fintack killed a water-bird and attempted to roast it on the next burst of flame but Prim gave him warning: as a Wizard, he could sense the power beneath their feet. This wasn’t just some pocket of fiery swamp gas, it was a glimpse at something far more powerful.

“That night, the slayers didn’t tell tales of past battles or trade information on different types of Dragon. Instead, they pondered what it might take to bring that fire out of the ground and use it for fuel. The warriors had spent their lives traveling Archetellos. They’d seen families, caught without a home for the winter, frozen by the side of the road. They’d seen Satyr slaves up in the Groves collecting coal to warm the Centaur palace. They knew all about the Dwarven forges that were powered by lava and could only be worked while deep inside dangerous mountains.

“Until that night, these warriors had served nobody but themselves. You could not have found more prideful, ambitious cut-throats anywhere on the continent. But standing right here,” Hendricks stomped both his feet on the stone floor, “they saw an opportunity to make the world a better place. Those three slayers used their influence to build a city like nobody had ever imagined. They gave up everything that had previously defined them. They relinquished the prizes they had been working so hard to find and, in doing so, they changed history.”

Hendricks stared at me with that bright green glint in his eye and picked up his empty glass with a flourish.

“I’m ready for another,” he said. “Storytelling makes me thirsty.”

I reached for my half-filled cocktail too quickly and my cuff caught the table. I tipped over the glass and as I jumped up to grab it, my other hand swung back too far and hit the iron of the fireplace. I ripped my hand off as fast as I could but a piece of skin was left stuck to the metal, sizzling and bubbling and smelling like meat.

Hendricks had already jumped into action. He filled a bowl with water and some snow from out back and I rested my hand in it for as long as I could manage. He dried it, carefully, then took the honey from the table and spread it over the wound, telling me that there was nothing better for healing skin than a good coat of fresh honey.

“How is it now?” he asked.

“Better. Still stings a bit. I’m so stupid.”

He laughed at me the way he always did, with an indistinguishable blend of fondness and patronizing amusement.

“We all burn ourselves, Fetch. It’s the best way to learn from our mistakes. It’s only when some part of you freezes that you cut the fucker off.”

He cackled madly and made us another round of drinks. And another.

Soon, I was so plastered that I couldn’t feel my fingers or the cold or much of anything terrible at all.